Artifacts Of Power - Dhiammara Part 4

Bern shuddered to think what she might do to his unborn child. Having no other choice, he throttled his anger and subsided in defeat. "Very well, my Lady," he whispered.

Alissana barely had time to leap back from the door at which she'd been listening as her husband burst into the room.

"The Lady will be staying with us." Bern spat out the words as though each one tasted vile. "She's demanding a hot bath and food," he added with a scowl, "so I'll stoke up the fire and start the water heating, while you start cooking-and for both our sakes, you'd better make it the best meal you've ever pro- duced in your life. Well go on-don't just stand there gaping, you brainless baggage. Get to the stove, and get busy!"

His wife scurried to obey him, suppressing a chill of trepidation at the thunderous expression on his face. During the years of their marriage, she had become all too well accustomed to her husband's temper, for he had a tendency to take it out on his family whenever anything went wrong. As she a.s.sembled the meal, Alissana fretted. She was a sensible, even-tempered woman who had been well aware of the baker's failings when she wed him. She had chosen him in any case, however, for in the aftermath of the Magefolk vanishment, he was the only man of any substance among the impoverished laboring folk of Nexis. She had learned perforce to s.h.i.+eld herself and the children from the worst of his rages, and this time she understood his anger, for she shared his anxiety.

It had stunned Alissana to discover that their prosperity had stemmed from some unholy bargain made with the Mage-folk in the past. Difficult and sometimes brutal as Bern could be, he represented security and even luxury for herself and her children. Alissana shuddered at the memory of the twisted black claw that the Mage had held out to her, and Eliseth's ice-cold eyes. The Lady terrified her. Alissana feared for the safety of her children-and now the Mage had accused Bern of stealing.... Her hands trembled as she rolled the pastry for her pie. What if Eliseth should slay him in a fit of pique, or turn him into something unnatural? What would become of his family then?

Grumbling and swearing all the while, Bern was testing the temperature of the water in the big copper that was built into the side of the fireplace. His back was turned toward his wife. Almost of their own accord, Alissana's eyes went to the metal box with the tight-fitting lid that was placed safely up on a high shelf, out of the children's way. Rats and mice were a frequent problem in the bakery and recently Bern had gone to the local herbwife and purchased a new batch of poison. Swiftly, Alissana reached up for the box. Bern's back was still safely turned as she sprinkled the white crystals between the layers of apple in her pie. Before her husband had time to turn around, the deed was done, the box replaced on its shelf, and the crust clapped into place, hiding the results of her deadly handiwork. Only when Alissana came to put the pie into the oven did she notice that her hands had stopped shaking.

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M a. gg i e F u r e y Vhiammars.

6 J.

Some time later, Eliseth, clean and refreshed now, sat before a blazing fire in what was evidently the best bedchamber in the house. The fact that Bern and his pregnant wife had been forced to give up their room to her caused her not the slightest qualm. It had been most uncomfortable and inconvenient to have no servants around to tend to her needs, but now, for the first time since her precipitate return to Nexis, she was filled with a soothing sense of life returning to its proper course. She savored the thought of the baker staggering up and down the stairs with his buckets to fill-and later empty- her bath. At least Mortals were useful for something!

The Magewoman had been immeasurably relieved to see that, though he had aged, the baker did not seem to be so very many years older than she remembered, and the expression on his face as he'd answered the door had afforded her a good deal of malicious amus.e.m.e.nt-enough, perhaps, for her to overlook the fact that he had looked anything but pleased to see her.

Now she had found that she was not too far astray in time, Eliseth's chief concern was the condition of her hands that had been so badly seared by the Sword of Flame. Oh, how she wished that she had bothered to learn more than just the most basic of healing arts from Meiriel. Though she had tried everything at her disposal, all her best efforts could only buy freedom from pain and a certain amount of sensation and flexibility in her clawlike fingers-sufficient to allow her to use her hands again, but not enough for very delicate or complex tasks. The skin remained seared and blackened, and nothing seemed to change that. She had an ominous feeling that nothing ever would. The Weather-Mage bit her lip and swallowed against a tightness in her throat. Demons take the accursed Sword of Flame! What had it done to her?

The arrival of Bern with a tray of food interrupted Eliseth's brooding. She was surprised to see him, for she had expected that he would find himself above such menial service when there was a woman around to do the work. He had certainly been surly enough about filling her bath. But Alissana might be too frightened to approach a Mage-or, in all probability, Bern was trying to keep his pregnant wife away from her.

As he put the tray down in front of her, Eliseth laid her other worries aside for the moment. "Sit down here, Bern, and keep me company while I eat," she said. "1 want to know exactly what has been happening in the city."

Little by little, Eliseth extracted a picture of what had taken place in Nexis during her absence. She had, she discovered, been missing for over seven years-easily enough time for the foolish, gullible Mortals to convince themselves that the Magefolk were all safely dead and gone. Nonetheless, it was fear of Miathan's restless ghost that had kept the Nexians from sacking the Academy-a fact that Eliseth noted with interest. It was difficult to contain her shock and anger, however, when she discovered that the Council of Three had been abolished and that upstart Vannor, of all people, now ruled the city. Since the night she had tried to fuel her magic through the pain of his mangled hand-and he had first defied her, then gone on to escape her grasp entirely-Eliseth's hatred of the merchant had been virulent, her grudge against him deeply personal. No mere Mortal could make an idiot out of her and go unpunished!

The same went for Vannor's daughter. The Mage's supper lost all its savor as she remembered how the little b.i.t.c.h had infiltrated the Academy in the guise of a maidservant and succeeded in worming her way into the position of Eliseth's personal maid. No one had ever been able to work out just how Zanna had managed to rescue her father and then vanish with him so effectively, but since the girl had been Eliseth's servant, Miathan had always blamed the Weather-Mage for the escape-completely overlooking the fact that he had been the one who'd entrusted the girl with the prisoner's care.

Her stomach churning with anger at the thought of Zanna, Eliseth pushed her plate of roast fowl aside. "Do you know what became of Vannor's daughter?" she asked Bern, trying to keep the sharpness from her voice.

Bern shook his head. "She married. Lady, I think." He shrugged. "1 don't know where she's living now-it's not in Nexis, though. I think she stayed away for safety's sake when the Phaerie started raiding. She comes to visit her father from time to time and brings her children."

The Magewoman sighed. Ah well-there'd be time enough to discover the whereabouts of Zanna. First of all she would concentrate on the girl's father, the self-styled Lord of Nexis, and she had no idea, yet, how she would take her revenge on him. Then something that Bern had said broke through her

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u r ey thoughts of revenge to come into the forefront of her mind. "What did you say about the Phaerie?" she demanded.

Eliseth listened with dismay as he told her the sorry tale. In the turmoil of events that were taking place around her when she'd been s.n.a.t.c.hed from the world, she had forgotten about the Forest Lord and his subjects. But it seemed that, in the absence of the Magefolk, the accursed Phaerie had been getting out of hand. In die first three or four years of his reign, Vannor had had endless trouble from the skyborne raiders. On the nights when the moon was bright and the north wind rode the skies, the citizens of Nexis and the surrounding countryside had soon learned to lock up their livestock and bar and bolt their doors when the Phaerie, on their powerful great horses that trod the air, came hurtling down from the skies. At first, only strong men were taken, but later specific craftsmen began to vanish - masons, tilers, builders, carpenters, and smiths. All were borne northward, too fast to be followed, never to return.

Later, farmers and shepherds also began to vanish - always those from the bleakest holdings, who knew how to get the best from the tough vegetation and thin soil of the upland farms. A different pattern was emerging here, however. The farms were discovered abandoned, with entire families gone, and the bams and fields stripped bare of livestock, implements and crops alike. Vannor, Eliseth was maliciously pleased to hear, had almost driven himself demented trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious abductions, but he had failed to discover the reason behind them, as abjectly as he had failed to put a stop to them. Soon farms were being deserted for another reason, as many of the outlying families fled their land to seek sanctuary with relatives who lived in the city.

Not that Nexis was really any safer. The Phaerie struck when they pleased, and s.n.a.t.c.hed whosoever they wanted. Young girls were often abducted now, and sometimes even children. Women were being s.n.a.t.c.hed away from home and family to suffer who knew what fate. Spinners and weavers were being targeted, as were seamstresses and lacemakers - not to mention bakers, brewers, and the members of the oldest profession of all. The Garrison seemed to be helpless - after so many failures to keep matters under control the commander had given up, and was occupied instead in drinking himself into an early grave. Though Nexis had prospered, by and large, under Vannor's rule, there could be no true peace On.iamma.rz63 or prosperity until the problem of the Phaerie had been dealt with once and for all.

Bern was a frightened man, that much was plain, thought Eliseth. He had escaped the Phaerie once, that day long ago in the Vale, by plunging into the lake and hiding beneath the overhanging bushes at the water's edge until they were safely gone before creeping away and finding one of the loose mercenary horses to make his way home. He had never forgotten, however, the horror of their attack when they had slain Eliseth's force of hired soldiers to the last man. He had fortified the bakery as well as he could, but still lived in fear that one night he, too, might be seized-and what if the Phaerie took his family?

It was all the same to Eliseth if they did-save that Bern himself might prove useful to her in the days to come. The Mage was more preoccupied with the threat that the Phaerie posed to her plans. She intended to take up the reins of power in Nexis, and it might prove difficult if the blasted Phaerie were still rampaging through the city. On the other hand, if she could get rid of them she would win the admiration and respect of the populace. She wouldn't have to lift a finger to oust Vannor-the stupid Nexians would be begging her to rule them. Scarcely listening to Bern's ceaseless tirade of whining complaints, she continued to make her plans as she pulled the apple pie toward her and began to eat.

Eliseth's eyes flew open wide with shock as the first pain lanced through her innards. As she toppled from her chair, clutching at her stomach, she could already feel the poison seeping into her blood like an insidious black tide. She clawed at her throat as she thrashed helplessly on the carpet, choking on a corrosive mixture of bile and gore.

There were only seconds remaining in which to save herself. Thrusting back her panic and striving her utmost to ignore the pain, Eliseth turned her will inward, to slow her laboring heart. She reached, as though with invisible fingers, into her veins, to break down the deadly poison into its harmless const.i.tuents that could be flushed out of her system.

Gradually, the agony and distress diminished. To her utter relief, the Mage felt the rhythms and functions of her body returning to normal. The receding waves of pain washed her back to the sh.o.r.es of consciousness. Feeling weak, nauseated, and dizzy, aching dully as though she had been beaten both inside and out, Eliseth opened her eyes.

64Mzggie F u r ey Where was Bern? Where was that two-faced, sneaking, back-slabbing lump of Mortal offal? Behind her, the Magewoman heard the soft snick and creak of the door being opened. Having discovered that she was about to survive his craven attack after all, the treacherous b.a.s.t.a.r.d was making a hasty escape.

"No!" Eliseth snarled, as she rolled over. She had had enough of Mortals slipping from her clutches. There was time for a fleeting glimpse of the terror in Bern's eyes-then a bolt of sizzling lightning left her hand in a swift, fluent motion. The baker's body crumpled, smoking, to the floor.

Cursing horribly, the Mage grabbed the edge of the table and pulled herself upright. A swift gulp of wine from the flask on the table helped to restore her. When she had steadied herself a little, she staggered across the room to the baker and looked down at his smoldering corpse with a frown, wrinkling her nose in disgust at the stench of charred flesh. "d.a.m.n the sniveling little rat to perdition-I would never have thought he'd have die nerve," she muttered to herself. All the same, now that the first fierce blast of her anger had dissipated, she began to regret killing him so quickly. She'd had plans for Bern and his family-and now he was useless to her. And she'd have to kill the wife and children, too, or the news of her return would be all over Nexis in no time, putting Vannor immediately on his guard. Eliseth cursed again. b.l.o.o.d.y Mortals! It was all very inconvenient.

Well, at least the baker had given her the information she needed before he died. She could leave now and return to the safety of the Academy-dealing with the remainder of Bern's family on the way. The Weather-Mage reached for her cloak, which was carelessly draped over the back of a chair. As she lifted it, she felt an unaccustomed weight, and touched a hard, lumpy shape hidden in the deep pocket that was sewn into the lining.

Eliseth stopped breathing and stood utterly still for a moment, the cloak forgotten in her hands. An incredible idea had suddenly occurred to her. The chalice she carried was said to be a fragment of the Caldron of Rebirth! Would it still have the power to perform the Caldron's original function? And if it did-why, the possibilities were staggering!

With hands that shook a little from excitement, Eliseth took the grail from her pocket and filled it with water from the jug on the table. As the liquid filled the cup, it seemed to take on the properties of the tarnished interior, turning a Vhia.mma.rz

65.

deep, viscous black without sparkle or reflection. A dark steam rose, curling, from the light-devouring surface. Holding the chalice very carefully, so as not to spill any of its contents over her hands, the Mage returned to the corpse of Bern and sprinkled a few drops over the still-smoking body.

At first, nothing seemed to be happening. There was no sign of life nor movement from the scorched, rec.u.mbent form. But then, just as Eliseth was about to turn away in disgust, she blinked, and looked again. The surface of Bern's body was covered in a dark, moving cloud, that looked, from a distance, like a swarm of tiny, glittering black bees. The Magewoman noticed that the charred sh.e.l.l of his peeling skin seemed to be softening a little, and gradually turning to the paler hue of healthy flesh. Within minutes, he was recognizable as human again but, to her disgust, the baker remained as dead as ever, neither breathing nor moving.

Acting on impulse, Eliseth lifted his head and trickled a few drops of dark water from the grail into his slack mouth. A tense moment pa.s.sed, and then another, while the Mage held her breath in antic.i.p.ation. Without warning, Bern inhaled sharply with a strangled gasp-and leapt clumsily to his feet. "Lady-I didn't! It wasn't me," he screamed. Then he blinked, and recognition returned to his eyes. "What happened?" he demanded, forgetting, in his confusion, to address the Mage with any mark of respect. "What was I doing?"

Eliseth, already framing an angry response, bit off her half-formed reply. Her eyes widened with shock as she realized that Bern, after his first, shrieked protest of innocence, had not spoken a word aloud. She could see into his mind!

She could see much more clearly once she realized what was happening, and began to focus all her powers of concentration. There, through the murky roil that const.i.tuted Mortal thoughts, was the baker's intense bafflement as he puzzled in vain to retrieve what had happened during the weird blank spell which had left him unconscious on the floor. She saw his horror and fear as he cast his mind back to realize that someone had tried to murder the Mage-and that only one person could have been responsible.

Alissana! Eliseth took the image straight out of the Mortal's mind. So it was Bern's accursed woman who'd had the temerity to make an attempt on her life! The Mage's wrath boiled over beyond all controlling-and suddenly, with a wrenching change of perspective, she found herself looking 66M. aggie F u r ey at herself. Eliseth gasped, and flung her hands up to her face- but they were not her hands, nor was it her own features that she could feel beneath her fingers. She was seeing the room through Bern's eyes!

Acting instinctively, Eliseth clamped her will down upon Bern's weak and cowardly Mortal thoughts, and felt them streaming through her mental grasp like grains of sand through an hourgla.s.s. She discovered that the sensation differed from that of occupying another's body, where the victim's individuality was thrust aside and the personality of the intruder took over. In this case, the baker's thoughts were still his own- the Mage simply controlled them, as though his mind was a restless horse that she could restrain and guide with the reins of her will. With a thrill of delight, she realized that he was actually unaware of her presence within him. The sensation of control was exhilarating, and Eliseth wondered just how far her hold extended. Tentatively at first, she began to probe the limits of her newfound power.

There was no risk of damage or danger to Eliseth's own body-she seated it carefully in a chair out of harm's way. Soon, she discovered that all she needed to control were the so-called higher functions of the baker's mind, and the automatic processes of his body took care of themselves. For a time she amused herself by making him move around the room and perform simple tasks. Then, when she felt ready, she decided to put her hold over her puppet to the test. Riding the web of Bern's thoughts like a lurking spider, she turned him toward the stairs-and the rooms where his family slept.

Chapter 5 The Undead.

Little Alissa, named after her mother, awoke in the darkness. She had slept uneasily that night, her dreams disturbed by the presence of the cold-eyed woman with the silver hair who had come to stay.Though she was not usually a timid child (she was a big girl now-six years old-and had to look after her little brother, Tolan), there was something about the stranger that made Alissa want to run away and hide. She was grateful for the rea.s.suring presence of her mother, who, as the visitor had taken over the best bedchamber, was sleeping on a pallet on the floor of the children's room.

The noise that had awakened Alissa came again-the stealthy shuffle of a furtive footfall on the stairs. Trembling, the girl huddled deeper beneath her blankets, and hugged her rag doll tightly. She heard the harsh, repet.i.tive hiss of ragged breathing outside the door. Feeling slightly foolish, Alissa relaxed her stranglehold on the doll. It was only Dad, coming to bed. How could she 68Maggie F u r ey have forgotten him? But as she listened to his fumbling efforts with the door latch, she shuddered, and tensed again with fear. He must have been drinking too much wine again- and she knew all too well, with a sad wisdom that belied her brief span of years, what the result would be.

Most of the time, Alissa's father was just a strict, stern master of the little household. He worked hard and expected his family, children included, to do their share-or woe betide them. Occasionally, however, he would spend the evening in a tavern, or sit up late on his own drinking wine-and then there would be trouble. On too many nights Alissa had crept out of bed, disturbed by the sound of blows and maf-fled cries, to watch or listen unseen, her heart hammering with fear, as he beat her mother. Too many times in her short life had she been thrashed during his drunken rages, or clouted as a result of his savage temper in the mornings that followed. Usually, the children's room was a sanctuary when he "was drunk. If they were out of his sight, he often didn't bother them. Tonight, however, there would be no escaping him, unless ...

The door swung open, spilling a wedge of light into the room, but Alissa, s.h.i.+vering in her thin nightdress, was already under the bed, rag doll and all. It was very dusty under there. Alissa put her hand over her face and breathed shallowly, hoping to subdue the tickling in her nose. Peeping out from her hiding place, she saw a pair of feet in st.u.r.dy boots shuffling unsteadily toward the pallet on the wall, where her mother, tired out from a hard day's work, slept on, oblivious. Hoping against hope that her father would be in one of his better moods and just go right to sleep, the child inched her way nearer the edge of the bed and craned her neck to see better.

Dad put the lantern down on the floor, beside the pallet. He stooped, and as the golden wash of lamplight illuminated his features, Alissa thought he looked strange, somehow. His expression was preoccupied and distant, as though he listened to some faint sound, far away. Her mother stirred, disturbed by the light, and rolled over onto her back. Something glittered in Dad's hand. Alissa m.u.f.fled a shriek as the knife flashed down, burying itself to the hilt in her mother's chest. With an odd, gurgling noise, the woman convulsed, then went limp. Alissa, numb with horrified disbelief, desperately wanted to look away, but could not. It was as though she had been turned Vntammzrs69 to stone. This just couldn't be happening-it couldn't be her own father who was doing this dreadful thingl The blood- the blood was everywhere, reeking, darkly gleaming in the lamplight.

With a jerk, Dad wrenched the knife out from between Mother's ribs and turned toward her little brother, who was awake now and howling in his cot. Only then was the spell of horror broken. Alissa realized, with a shock that sent a bolt of ice shearing down her spine, that she would be next. Dad turned his back on her, the knife raised high to strike. Alissa rolled out from underneath the bed. Little Tolan's high, thin scream drowned her footsteps as she raced toward the door- and then the sound cut off abruptly. Dad, whirling, lunged toward her with an incoherent shout-but Alissa was out and hurtling down the stairs before he could reach her. She reached the outer door a scant few strides ahead of him and pulled frantically at the handle-but the door was locked, and the big key turned too stiffly for a child to manage.

Alissa shrieked as the wild-eyed figure she had once known as her father loomed over her, eyes wild and vacant in his spattered face, his knife, dripping gore, held high in one clenched and b.l.o.o.d.y fist. As he swooped down on her she ducked beneath his clutching hands and dodged away, taking the only route that was left open to her-the short pa.s.sageway that led into the bakery-though she knew that outside door would be locked too. Bern, hot in pursuit, tried to turn too quickly and his blood-soaked boots slipped on the polished tiles of the hallway. Alissa heard him curse, and recognized the thud as he fell. It would give her a moment-a single moment-in which to hide herself.

Gasping for breath, the child ran into the bakery and looked wildly around for a place of concealment. The only place that seemed to offer a refuge was the big oven, cold now that the fire had gone out. Without another thought, Alissa ran across the room and climbed into the bread-scented interior. She slammed the door behind her just in time and huddled in the darkness, still clutching her rag doll and scarcely daring to breathe.

Eliseth, her awareness ensconced like a parasite within Bern's mind, used the baker's eyes to scan the room and scowled in vexation. Curse the child! Where in perdition had it gone?

70Maggie F u r ey She tried the door. Still locked. Well, in that case the misbegotten little brat couldn't be far away. At first she thought of the closets until she gleaned from Bern's memory that they were too well stocked to provide enough s.p.a.ce for a hiding place-then her eye fell on the ovens. One of them wasn't large enough to hold a child, but surely the other ...

The baker moved as though he were sleepwalking: conscious, but with no volition of his own. He made no effort to fight the Mage as she guided him across the room to the oven and had him wedge the heavy door shut with the shank of a broom. The ashes of the fire were still warm, and it took no time at all to rekindle a blaze. As Bern piled on more wood, Eliseth heard Alissa shrieking. Testing her control of the baker, she forced him to stand there and listen to the death of his little daughter. It took a long time for the screams to stop.

Leaving instructions in Bern's mind that rendered him immobile for a time, Eliseth rummaged through the house, picking out items she thought might be of use to her. Bern's small h.o.a.rd of gold she took, and blankets, quilts, provisions, candles, and anything else that could be found in the bakery to make her life more comfortable in the decaying Academy. Sadly, the baker's wife had been much shorter than the Mage, so her clothes were useless, but Eliseth helped herself to several pairs of stockings, some gloves, and a thick woollen cloak. Although it was too short, it would keep out the worst of the cold until she could get another.

Eliseth heaped her selections on the floor by the back door and returned to the Academy, unenc.u.mbered and unseen, by the swiftest route. Once there, she extended her consciousness toward Bern, for she could not control her own body and someone else's at the same time, and had been forced to leave him down in the city. It was far easier to find the baker than she had expected. In the dank squalor of the Academy kitchens, she lit a fire, then filled the chalice with water and squatted down by the hearth to look into the cup by the light of the flickering flames. Their link, through the Mage's control of the grail, was such that she seemed almost to be drawn to him. As soon as she thought of the baker, she saw him in the water, lifting the body of his only son out of a tangle of blood-soaked blankets.

Bern bowed his head over the little corpse, and wept.

Vhia.mma.r3i 7 1.

"G.o.ds, how could this have happened?" he cried in anguish. "How could you let this happen?"

Eliseth shrugged, and insinuated herself into the baker's mind once more. She forced him to leave the bodies of his family and sent him downstairs to harness up the horse and load her looted implements and provisions on to the cart. Then she sent him back indoors with a bottle of lamp oil and a long stick from the woodpile that would serve as a torch. For many reasons, it would be best to get rid of the evidence.

With his will under the Mage's iron control, Bern drove his horse and cart up the hill to the Academy, laden with goods that had once been his own hard-earned possessions and were now Eliseth's spoils. Behind him, the flames of the burning bakery roared up into the night, sending a swirl of sparks drifting up toward the sky like lost, searching souls.

Eliseth made herself comfortable as best she could in the hard wooden chair, and watched the flames licking the sooty stones of the fireplace as the twilight deepened outside the window in the Archmage's suite. It seemed that Miathan must have set some kind of self-renewing spell on his chambers. The rooms, located high above the damp lower stories of the tower, were in by far the most habitable condition-and it was just as well, because the Mage was exhausted. Throughout the daylight hours, she had been concentrating hard to control the mind of her puppet as he swept and scrubbed the chambers, throwing out anything that was soiled or decayed beyond saving. Eliseth sighed and stretched. By the G.o.ds-it had been almost as wearying as doing the work herself!

The Mage poured herself another gla.s.s of wine, and picked fastidiously at a platter of bread and cheese. It had been worth all her effort to create this haven. None of the Mortals would dare come near the Academy-they were afraid of the place, and she would make sure they stayed that way. For the first time since she had come into this strange future, Eliseth relaxed. She was safe here,and now she could be reasonably comfortable while she worked out the best way to restore the Magefolk rule to Nexis.

Her possession of Bern was an excellent beginning, and boded well for the future. Eliseth could get into his mind at any time without his being aware of her presence. She could see through his eyes and manipulate his actions from a safe distance, and afterward, she had discovered, the baker had no 72Maggie furey recollection that his mind had been under the control of another. A slow smile of triumph spread itself over Eliseth's face. What a weapon this chalice had turned out to be! Miathan had been an utter fool not to discover the potential that lay within it-but thank the G.o.ds he had not. It was the solution to all her problems. Not only would she gain her revenge on Vannor and his wretched daughter, but she would rule Nexis, and those stupid Mortals wouldn't even know it!

This led to a further thought, and the Mage felt pleasurable excitement stir within her. Aurian would arrive eventually-that much was certain. What if Eliseth were to possess Anvar in the same fas.h.i.+on? Then she could spy on her enemy's movements, and influence her plans from afar. What if she could kill Aurian without a confrontation, either physical or magical-without, indeed, endangering herself in the slightest way? And wouldn't it be marvelous to bring about the ultimate betrayal-a fitting fate for the Mortal-loving b.i.t.c.h, and the one thing that would hurt Aurian more than anything else in the world-before she put an end to Eilin's daughter once and for all?

Eliseth laughed aloud. I'm going to enjoy this, she thought. But she knew her pleasure must be postponed for a while. After all, Aurian was not here yet-but Vannor was, and it was through him that she intended to carry out her conquest of Nexis. And what better time to start than tonight?

Somehow, however, the Mage simply could not settle down in the Archmage's chambers. Perhaps it was because she would be spending the night in what had once been his bed that she was consumed with uneasy thoughts of Miathan, and remembered the last expression of fury and loathing that had been stamped indelibly on his face in the instant she had betrayed him, and taken him out of time. Disquiet began to stir within her. The Archmage's spells to preserve the food had faded, as she had seen. Supposing her own time-spell had weakened in her absence? What then?

What utter nonsense! Eliseth tried to laugh at herself for entertaining such foolish fancies, but somehow, the laughter had a hollow ring. It would be a simple matter to put her mind at rest, she told herself firmly-she need only go down into the catacombs where she had stowed Miathan's immobile form in one of the archive chambers, out of harm's way. She would see that he was still there, safely in her power, and that would be that. Yet Eliseth paced the chamber ujneasily, h 1 m m 3 r a.

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.putting off the moment when she must venture down into " ;that dark labyrinth of abandoned tunnels. There were more unpleasant things than Miathan down there. She remembered the Death-Wraiths, and wished that she had not.

By this time, Eliseth was becoming increasingly annoyed with herself-so much so that her anger finally outweighed her trepidation. s.n.a.t.c.hing up a lamp from the table, she clattered swiftly down the spiral stone staircase and, slamming the door of the Mages' Tower loudly behind her, marched across " the courtyard and into the library without a backward look.

;; As soon as she entered the cold, damp archives, Eliseth ;i remembered why she had hated spending so much time in ' this place while researching the powers of the grail. Her foot- : ..steps, sounding far less swift and certain now, echoed hol- Jowly in the narrow tunnels, on sloping stone floors with a fj smooth depression down the center of the pa.s.sages, where * .the stone had been worn away by the feet of generations of .archivists who had pa.s.sed and re-pa.s.sed through the cata-,), :combs. Trails of moisture gleamed on the wall, reflecting the *' light of her lamp, and the Weather-Mage s.h.i.+vered in the damp, Uphill air. She wished she had thought to bring her cloak with s^her from the tower. Still, she thought, I won't be down here H for long. I just need to check on Miathan and go. If I re-i member rightly, the room where I left him is just along this ^pa.s.sage.. . .

He was gone. She couldn't believe it. Miathan had escaped her. At first she thought she must have lost her way and come Ito the wrong chamber-but there was no mistaking it. To be absolutely sure, she had marked the door, and when she & stepped back, she could see the runes s.h.i.+mmering in the larnp- * i light. Eliseth looked into the empty room, and dread went *through her like a bolt of ice-cold lightning. Where was he?

*J Suddenly, the Mage remembered what Bern had told her- .;:that the Mortals were afraid to come near the Academy because of Miathan's ghost. Could he still be here? Could he, even now, be lurking in these dark tunnels? Creeping up on ;.her? With a gasp of horror, Eliseth turned and fled.

The wine that she had taken from Bern's home was of poorer quality than she was accustomed to, but for once, Eli-th didn't care. Once she had regained the sanctuary of her ^chambers-Miathan's chambers, she thought with a shudder- '*she barred and bolted the door, and reinforced the lock with

74.

M. a. gg i e F u r e y Ohia.mm3.ra.